


The First Page

by xiggystardust



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiggystardust/pseuds/xiggystardust
Summary: Eventually, G'raha is going to have to stop yearning and say something.Featuring my friend's WoL, Vesper. Merry crimbus!LIGHT 5.3 SPOILERS
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Original Character(s), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	The First Page

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a Christmas gift for my friend who doesn't know what my AO3 account is. Hi Silvia! If you're reading this, you found my AO3 HAHA. Hope the fic is just as good here as in google docs!
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy! It's always a delight to write for G'raha.

Sunlight dappled through the canopy of the North Shroud lending a spotted sheen to the scattered pieces of magitek armor. The armor’s sole inhabitant, an imperial conscript whose accent suggested Doman heritage, trembled amongst the rubble. It was strange, G’raha thought, having to deal with Garlemald after years of their irrelevance. He considered himself lucky to have help in the endeavor.

“I got him!” Vesper’s voice rang out from beside him, giving no more than a second’s warning before her hilt met with the imperial soldier’s head. Out like a light.

“Thank you,” G’raha said as he fixed his staff to his back, “I’m out of practice, I’m afraid.”

Vesper shrugged, all nonchalant and half-smiling. “You just got back. Give it time.”

That much was true. G’raha had been awake for less than a week but Garlemald was not wont to wait and neither was Vesper. He watched as she reached for her linkpearl and apprised the other Scions of the situation. He couldn’t help but smile. Vesper was a force to be reckoned with in the First--a veritable savior trailing behind her like a path to victory. But in the Source she was more akin to the title she bore. This was home. When she walked beneath the boughs of the Shroud, she appeared as an extension of Eorzea.

“Alphinaud is sending someone.”

G’raha pulled out of his thoughts. His ears shot upward. “What?”

“Alphinaud is sending someone,” Vesper repeated, “to come pick up this idiot. The Serpents, probably. I don’t know but we’re free to go back. He won’t wake up before they get here.”

“Right. Of course.” It was that moment in which G’raha’s stomach chose to rumble. 

Vesper laughed loud enough to scare birds from their perches. If it weren’t for his embarrassment, G’raha’s ears would have perked up again in an attempt to follow the sound. “Are you hungry Mr. Exarch?”

G’raha tugged on the him of his shirt, bashful. “It would be a lie to say no.”

When Vesper smiled, G’raha returned the gesture. “I know a place.”

The “place” Vesper spoke of was a tavern straight out of a storybook. Dark wood made up the bulk of its structure and though there were no bards that early in the day, the Adventurer’s Guild stationed at the far end invited constant traffic through its doors.  
“Welcome to Miounne’s tavern.” Vesper spoke above the chitter chatter of the crowd. “It’s simple but it’s good.”

She led them toward an empty table at the far back where they could see the rest of the tavern with ease. G’raha recognized the name but not the locale. He read about Gridania’s tavern in books and guides but if he ever saw it for himself, it was a lifetime ago. It warmed its heart to see it now, a gathering of people eating and chatting with no threat of sin eaters hanging over everyone’s heads. 

“It’s lovely.” he said at last. He pulled out a chair for Vesper before sitting himself. Vesper yelled for drink and food, obviously a regular here. “This is where you started, isn’t it? The Dragoon’s Guild is by the ferry if my memory serves me well.”

“Look at you.” Vesper spoke with a teasing lilt. “You really studied me. Is that what all those books in the tower were about?”

G’raha blanched then flushed. His ears pressed against his head and his tail twitched, restless with his nerves. “I-it’s not that! It was imperative that I knew where to find you or else I would have pulled--”

Vesper’s hand landed heavily on G’raha’s shoulder. The shock silenced him. “I’m just joking, G’raha. You had an important job and didn’t want to ruin it. I get it.”

G’raha’s words caught in his throat. He didn’t have the courage to repeat the confession he made in the First--to remind her that the stories of her derring-do were as inspiring as they were informative. To say that he got caught up in the reports the way children got caught up in myths and legends. Instead he said, “You are difficult to forget.”

Vesper’s eyes widened and G’raha tried to avoid them. He could feel her gaze, confused and surprised, bore into him. He was ever used to being the one observing. As the Exarch it was his job so he stole glances under the guise of study and preparation if not from underneath his hood. He missed that damned hood more than ever. “I-is there something on my face?”

“No.” Vesper’s response was immediate. “I just didn’t think, um--you too.”

At this, he lifted his head. He found Vesper’s expression to be soft. Her brows knit together just enough to lend her smile a tinge of sorrow, like she was moved by his declaration. She wore this expression only once before when she woke him in the tower. His eyes fluttered open and met hers, then, though his vision blurred with a century’s worth of held back tears. Waking unto her was as waking unto a new life. Their life, he told himself. The life they built together with blood and sweat and sacrifice.

“I’ve been so lucky,” Vesper continued, “to meet so many people. They were all important to me in their own ways but after the hundredth person, they all start to blur together. I don’t even remember the name of that little girl from Ishgard but she’s going to remember me forever.”

“That’s not your fault.” G’raha blurted loud enough to hush the tavern. He cleared his throat and repeated, quieter, “That’s not your fault. You’re needed by so many.”

“I know.” she said. “I’m not trying to complain I just--”

Vesper interrupted herself to sigh. She ran a hand through her hair giving her curls an untamed look. She tried and failed to finish her statement. 

“You just?” G’raha encouraged her.

“I just think that if you left tomorrow you wouldn’t blur into everyone else.”

G’raha’s chest tightened. She could not know what that meant to him, not truly. The Crystal Exarch was an enigma built to never be understood or seen. The G’raha of years past was doomed to meet a future where his deeds went unmarked, unnoticed. Remembrance was a luxury he traded for everyone else’s sake. He swallowed hard, unsure of what to say.

“I’m sorry if that’s weird.” Vesper put her hands up as if showing her palms might undo some imagined damage. “You mean a lot to me, that’s all. You and all the Scions.”

“By Thaliak’s scroll,” G’raha breathed out, “we are a nervous bunch. Please, be at ease, friend.”

Vesper put her hands down. Despite his words, G’raha felt shaky. He was confident that his tail still betrayed his nervousness though he was unwilling to draw any more attention to that fact by trying to stop it. 

“You started it.” said Vesper. “You’re too sentimental, old man.”

“Guilty as charged.” G’raha shrugged. “I like to keep the most precious people close and closer still.”

They eased back into their regular banter, then. Lunch passed quickly with Vesper’s talk of recent events and a not-insignificant amount of rookie adventurers coming to gawk at the Warrior of Light. Several of them spoke of how Vesper inspired them to take up spears or bows or books, a sentiment which made G’raha smile. And she shone with a light that had nothing to do with Hydaelyn. He wondered if she knew her ears twitched whenever she was complimented.

“You’re really cool, lady!” An adventurer of the child variety yelled after being allowed to pass a hand over Vesper’s polearm. “Thank you!”  
G’raha chuckled as he watched the child rush back to their parents. “They’re right.”

“Right about what?” Vesper asked, turning her full attention back to her companion.

“About you being sophisticated.”

“I think, Mr. Exarch,” Vesper’s lips curled into a wicked smile, “the correct term is ‘cool’.”

“I would use lovelier words than that were I a bard.”

“Unfortunately, you’re just a nerd.” Vesper stuck out her tongue. G’raha knew the only thing stopping her from blowing a raspberry at him was the prospect of spitting over the table. She was stronger than him for keeping her playfulness alive in the face of all her responsibilities. “Let’s go. Can’t stay here forever.”

G’raha agreed though he would have rather frozen the moment.

Outside the tavern, Gridania was lively in the late afternoon. G’raha and Vesper’s earlier mission no doubt sent guards into a gossipping frenzy Alphinaud would have to fix later. A serpent down their path caught his eye, pointing at the two of them and exchanging words with their cohort. 

“Maybe we should just take an airship.” Vesper said.

“Is it not better to ease their fears? They hardly need to worry over one confused soldier.”

Vesper shook her head. “I’m no good at talking. Let’s go.”

G’raha could have protested--should have protested. But Vesper’s hand caught his and he found himself delighted to be tugged to the airship landing. She walked quickly or else time passed differently with their fingers interlaced. Whatever the truth, they were already aboard when she let go. He flexed his hand.

“Stabbing things? I can do that. But last time someone let me ‘ease their fears’ I made a joke they didn’t think was very funny. Or a joke. At all.” Vesper shivered as if the memory of that occasion haunted her still.

“Ah, the Pirate Panic. I’ve been told.”

‘What?” Vesper pressed a hand against her chest. “By who?”

“Y’shtola. She brought it up to chide me for my own mistakes.”

Vesper crossed her arms. She bit her lower lip and glowered, affronted. “Well that’s not fair. I thought we were only allowed to make fun of Alphinaud.”  
“Perhaps that, too, isn’t fair.” G’raha offered. He hadn’t been a Scion for very long but he took note of the way the others liked to tease their diplomat. He feared he was their next target.

“Whatever.” Vesper said with a huff. “It was going to come up eventually.”

“It doesn’t make me think less of you.”

Her smile returned. She winked. “Nothing makes you think less of me.”

G’raha felt his cheeks heat. “You are determined to make a mess of me.”

“Am I wrong, though?” Vesper bumped G’raha’s shoulder lightly.

“You never are.”

Silence fell. G’raha breathed in the air and watched the greenery of the forest give way to rockier, more mountainous terrain. Mhor Dona was beautiful, too, but knowing the Crystal Tower was just over the horizon put a pit in his stomach. His days in the First were over, both the good and the bad. But their echoes were a permanent thing. He could always recall the times he thought he was dead or the times he thought Vesper would be. It was difficult to believe the Source could be any different. Most days, he didn’t think it was. Death is death whether by sin eater or primal or Garlean. 

“You’re far away.” Vesper said. She ghosted a hand over G’raha’s face, trying to turn him towards her. He obliged. 

“No.” he said. “I’m never far.”

“What are you thinking about?”

G’raha searched Vesper’s eyes for the answer she wanted to hear. He could tell her the truth about his anxieties but she had so much to worry about already. He could talk about the First and how he has come to understand Vauthry’s grip on Eulmore for he, too, had something precious to him that he did not know how to protect. But all of this came up short. All of it avoided the root of the problem.

“G’raha?” Vesper’s voice pitched upward with concern.

“My friend,” he spoke softly, “you will have to forgive me my impulses.”

“I don’t--”

He cut her off with a kiss. It wasn’t practiced. It was clumsy, the product of a lack of experience and no doubt, Vesper’s surprise. He didn’t know what to do with his hands so he placed them by her face, imitating the caress she had just given him. He was hyper-aware of his tail this time, the way it swung back and forth in wide sweeps. He tried to ignore it, concerned with giving Vesper the kind of kiss he read about in fairy tales.

When they pulled apart it was as sudden as when it began. G’raha’s hand shot up to scratch the back of his neck instinctively. Vesper stood still, processing the moment. It felt like hours before she finally spoke, “There is nothing to forgive.”

“Y-you don’t have to be so humble.” G’raha spoke faster than he had all day. He felt like a child. “You are a great and important person. I will never tire of telling you, again and again, how you’ve inspired me so. But that does not make me entitled to--”

“I said,” Vesper’s voice cracked when she raised it, “there is nothing to forgive. Sure, you’re not entitled to me. Even Hydaelyn isn’t. But if you guessed that I did not love you, then you’ve guessed wrong.”

If his knees were not already locked, G’raha would have fallen. In all his time as Exarch, very few things made his heart race the way this did. Even fewer shocked him this way. “You mean to say--”

“If you ask me if I really love you after everything we have been through, I will tell Lyna.”

G’raha broke into a smile, the widest he’d worn in years. He laughed, too, and used the remaining strength he had to launch himself at Vesper. She caught him in a hug and spun him, lifting his feet from the airship floor as she did so. 

“Vesper,” he spoke into her neck where he hid his embarrassment from prying eyes, “the joy you give me is without comparison.”

“You make me happy, too.” she said.

“Vesper.” he said again, and again, and again, breathing life into her name. Breathing his soul into it. 

“We have to go home.”

It was only then he noticed the airship had come to a stop. He pried himself from Vesper’s embrace and though his cheeks grew sore holding his expression, he would not trade his smile for anything. “My apologies.”

Vesper held out her hand. “Come on. I’m sure the Scions will have something to say about this.”

He took it without hesitation. “They really are nosy, aren’t they?”

“We aren’t exactly subtle.”

Laughing, G’raha let Vesper lead him back to the Rising Stones.


End file.
